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The Swedish Beginning of 

Pennsylvania and Other 

Events in Pennsylvania 

History 

BY 
THOMAS WILLING BALCH 



pmeritatt Jlnltquatian gazititi 



The Swedish Beginning of 

Pennsylvania and Other 

Events in Pennsylvania 

History 



BY 
THOMAS WILLING BALCH 

•i 



Reprinted from the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 
for October, 1914. 



WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A. 

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY 

1914 



.317 



THE DAVIS PRESS 
Worcester, Massachusetts 



Gift 

Alii ;] 
fSS 2 



THE SWEDISH BEGINNING OF 

PENNSYLVANIA AND OTHER EVENTS IN 

PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY 



BY THOMAS WILLING BALCH 

When the President a year ago invited me to address 
this notable Society at one of its annual meetings, but 
one answer, of course, could be given. And as I am 
a Pennsylvanian by almost two and three-quarter 
centuries of inheritance, I have chosen some events 
in the history of Pennsylvania as my theme for this 
occasion. Pennsylvania, as her name of the Keystone 
State implies, has had a notable history. During the 
Colonial period, owing to her geographical position, 
the large number of her population and her important 
commercial development, she was truly the Keystone 
Colony. And since the Declaration of Independence, 
owing in part still to her geographical position and 
also because of the influence that, through the large 
number of her people moving westward and south- 
westward, she has exerted in shaping and moulding the 
institutions of the Nation beyond the Alleghenies, 
Pennsylvania has come to be known all over the 
country as the Keystone State. Like every one of the 
other colonies or original States, Pennsylvania has 
contributed her share to the building and maintenance 
of the Union. Unfortunately the people of Penn- 
sylvania possess only in a small degree an admirable 
quality which you here in Massachusetts have in large 
measure, a quality which I admire you for; and that 
is, that when anyone in the community has done some- 
thing which is really worth the doing, to make it known 
not only locally but also in all the world besides. 



The reason for not properly heralding abroad, and 
indeed also at home, the deeds of the sons and the 
daughters of our Province and State, is due doubtless 
to a complexity of causes. 1 First of all, the population 
of Pennsylvania was the least homogeneous of that 
of any of the colonies. It was made up first of 
Swedes, then came some Hollanders, English, Ger- 
mans, Scotch-Irish, and the Connecticut settlers in 
the north. 2 All these elements are not even today 
fused into a homogeneous whole, such as, for example, 
the original English folk who settled in the seven- 
teenth century either in Massachusetts or Virginia. 
Then again the Alleghenies divided the State for a 
long time into two entirely distinct parts. As a result 
of this geographical division which only came to an 
end when the Pennsylvania Railroad permitted easy 
and rapid communication between the Delaware 
River and the head waters of the Ohio, there was not 
an entire community of interest between the original 
settlements along the Delaware and that large ag- 
glomeration of people in the western part of the Com- 
monwealth which Abraham Lincoln sometimes called 
the " State of Allegheny." In addition, the Qua- 
kers — I am myself descended from a Quaker, Edward 
Shippen, the emigrant of that name 3 — by their reli- 
gious spirit of repressing all attempt at self exaltation 
and laudation, have been one of the potent elements 
which have caused Pennsylvania and especially Phil- 
adelphia and the eastern portion of the Common- 
wealth, to be backward in making known to the world 
at large the mighty events which have been enacted on 
her soil, or the great contributions which she has made 
through her children to the advance of civilization. 



1 In collecting my information I have received kind help from Mr. Jordan and Mr. 
Spofford, the Librarian and Assistant Librarian of the Historical Society of Pennsyl- 
vania; and Mr. Keen, the Curator of the Society. 

2 Albert Cook Myers, editor; Narratives of Early Penny slvania, West Jersey and Del- 
aware, 1630-1707, New York, 1912. 

8 Thomas Balch: Letters and Papers relating chiefly to the Provincial History of Penn- 
sylvania, Philadelphia, 1855. 



While it is well known that the most momentous 
battle of our Civil War was fought close to Mason 
and Dixon's line at the Pennsylvania village of Get- 
tysburg, that regiments from most of the States in 
the Union took part in that battle either on one side 
or the other, and that the supreme command of the 
army of the Potomac on those three memorable days 
was held by a Pennsylvanian, General Meade, it is 
not equally well known that the next two in the high- 
est command, Reynolds and Hancock, were also sons 
of the Keystone State. The encampment at Valley 
Forge, where our fathers under Washington, Wayne, 
Miihlenburg and others, kept watch along the banks 
of the Schuylkill through a bleak winter at one of 
the darkest periods of the war for independence, is 
only now becoming known generally throughout the 
Union. 4 And as for the capture on November 25th, 
1758, of Fort Duquesne, which stood where is now 
the center of the great city of Pittsburgh, but little 
has been made of that important historic event by the 
people of Pennsylvania. Yet the expedition under 
the command of General Forbes, which started from 
Philadelphia and marched through the Pennsylvania 
wilderness was made up in large part of Pennsylvania 
troops 5 and was likewise financed in part by the Key- 
stone Colony. That capture is not generally known 
to the people outside of the borders of the State. 
Nevertheless, that victory broke the continuity of 
the chain of French forts which linked Canada with 
Louisiana, and was one of the important factors that 
opened the way for the spread of the Anglo-Saxon 
race and the English language all the way across the 
continent to the Pacific Ocean. Likewise relatively 
few people know that the first public protest in 
America against slavery was made by Francis Daniel 
Pastorius, the founder of Germantown and " The Penn- 
sylvania Pilgrim" of Whittier, Dirck op den Graeff, 



'Samuel W. Pennypacker: Pennsylvania in American History, Philadelphia, 1910. 
' Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd series, Harrisburg, 1876, volume II, pages 559-560. 



6 

Abraham op den Graeff and Gerhard Hendricks, in 
1688 at Germantown, now a part of Philadelphia. 6 

We have had notable men in all walks of life, such 
painters as Benjamin West and John Neagle, 7 such 
scientists as David Rittenhouse, 8 such a printer as 
Christopher Sauer, such poets as Bayard Taylor and 
Thomas Buchanan Read, the former of whom wrote 
also the novel Hannah Thurston and the latter the 
short poem, Sheridan's Ride. 9 And the prince of 
the American comic stage, Joseph Jefferson, was born 
in the house standing at the southwest corner of 
Spruce and South Sixth Streets. 

Of late, however, a realization that the good deeds 
and fruitful works of Pennsylvania's children have 
not been properly chronicled abroad has begun to 
take hold of the community. So, this morning, may 
I present to your attention a few important facts in 
the history of the Province which owing to her geo- 
graphical position and political importance was as 
truly the Keystone Colony as she is today called the 
Keystone State. 

I. Three of the Nations of Europe took a direct and 
active part in founding and establishing the thirteen 
colonies which ultimately united to form the United 
States of America— England, Holland, and Sweden. 
With the attempted settlement at Roanoke in the 
last quarter of the sixteenth century by an expedition 
sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh, and with the successful 
settlement started by the English at Jamestown on 



• Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker: The Settlement of Germantown, Philadelphia, 1899, 
pages 144-147. Marion Dexter Learned: The Life of Francis Daniel Pastorius : Phil- 
adelphia, 1908, pages 200 et seq. 

7 Edwin Swift Balch: Art in America before the RevoUUion, Philadelphia, 1908. Mr. 
Edward Biddle also called my attention to Neagle as one of our notable portrait painters. 

8 Samuel W. Pennypacker: Pennsylvania in American History, Philadelphia, 1910. 
' The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has the manuscript of Sheridan's Ride, which 

Thomas Buchanan Read presented to Ferdinand J. Dreer, who gave it to the Society. 
It was written during the war soon after the battle of Winchester. The Society also 
has Read's portrait of Sheridan from life which the poet used in painting his well known 
picture of Sheridan riding to retrieve the day at Winchester. 

Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer: The Literary History of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 1906. 



June 7, 1607, began the founding of the five colonies 
south of the northern line of Maryland by men and 
women of ^English speech. With the landing of the 
Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock, in 1620, started 
the establishment by men and women speaking the 
same tongue of what came to be known as "New 
England." At the mouth of that majestic river, 
perhaps discovered by Verrazano, that has borne since 
1609 the name of that intrepid navigator and explorer, 
Henry Hudson, an Englishman born in Somerset- 
shire, who sailed the seven seas sometimes in the 
service of the States General of the United Nether- 
lands and sometimes under the flag of his own native 
England, Hollanders began to establish themselves 
on Manhattan Island to trade with the Indians of 
the Hudson Valley at least as early as 1613. 10 On 
October 11, 1614, the States General of the United 
Netherlands granted in a charter to a company, that 
came to be known afterwards as the New Netherland 
Company, the right to the exclusive trade between 
the Netherlands and "New Netherland." 11 From 
that time to this, trade has been carried on continu- 
ously between Holland and the valley of the Hudson. 
The Dutch settlement on Manhattan Island was 
christened Amsterdam in New Netherland, though 
historians thought fit to change the first part of the 
name into New Amsterdam. 12 because, probably, it 
had been renamed by the English New York. 

Spreading, eventually, westward across the North or 
Hudson River, the Dutch started the first settlements 
in Northern New Jersey. 13 Likewise at the southern 
end of New Jersey, the Hollanders were the first to 



10 E. B. O'Callaghan: History of New Netherland, New York, 1846, page 68. 

11 Charter of October 11, 1614; see photographic copy in the New York Historical 
Society of the original manuscript at The Hague. 

12 I have to thank Mr. Kelby, librarian of the New York Historical Society, for thi» 
interesting information. 

" William S. Whitehead: East Jersey under the Proprietary Government, Newark, 
N. J., 1875, page 17; The English in East, and West Jersey, being chapter II of volume III 
of Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, Boston and New York. 1884, 
page 422; Year Book of the Holland Society of New York, 1914, passim. 



8 

occupy the land with a settlement. 14 Sailing up the 
South or Delaware River in 1620, Captain Cornelius 
May of Hoorn, in command of the good ship Blyde 
Bootschap, discovered "some new and fruitful lands." 
The mouth of the river was named by the Dutch 
after him Nieuw Port May, and to this day the south- 
ern end of New Jersey is known as Cape May. Three 
years later Captain May was again sent out from Hol- 
land with a Dutch expedition to the Delaware River 
with instructions to build a fort upon one of its shores. 
Accordingly, ascending the South River, he explored 
and looked over the surrounding country, and in 1623 
on the east or left bank of the river, at a point nearly 
opposite to the present city of Philadelphia, he con- 
structed a fort. This fortification in honor of the 
family that had done and sacrificed so much to secure 
and maintain the independence of the United Nether- 
lands, they called Fort Nassau, a name that has been 
kept as a living reality to Americans down to the 
present day by Nassau Hall at Princeton. 

Later, New York and New Jersey were both taken 
from the Hollanders by the English through conquest 
by force of arms, yet the present sovereignty of each 
of those two commonwealths goes back for its begin- 
nings across the Atlantic Ocean to the States General 
of the United Netherlands. 

If we turn to the history of Delaware, we find that 
at the southern extremity of that little Commonwealth 
the Dutch in 1631 formed a settlement. Their gov- 
ernor, named Giles Ossettor Gillis Hossett, who was 
the first governor representing the sovereignty of a 
European State to establish 'his seat of government 
within the area of the modern State of Delaware, and 
who consequently was the first predecessor of the 
present governor of the State of Delaware, was a 
Hollander. The Dutch colonists named the stream 



'♦Berthold Fernow: New Netherland, or the Dutch in North America; Chapter VIII 
in volume IV of Winsor'a Narrative and Critical History of America, Boston and New 
York. 1884. 



9 

upon which they settled, Hoornkill, probably as in 
the case of Cape Horn or Hoorn, in memory of the 
town of Hoorn on the Zuyderzee. 15 The surrounding 
region the Hollanders called Zwaanendael, and build- 
ing a fort, they named it Oplandt. They made a 
treaty of amity with the local Indians. A few months 
later, however, the whole colony was massacred by 
the red men, because, as it is supposed, an Indian 
having taken the tin plate which the Dutchmen had 
set up with the coat-of-arms of the United Provinces 
upon it, the colonists caught and executed him; 
whereupon the aborigines, to avenge the death of 
their brother, collected their forces, fell upon the white 
strangers, killed them all but one and blotted the 
whole settlement of the Hollanders out of existence. 
It was on account of this short lived occupancy by 
the Hollanders in 1631 of the Southern end of what is 
now Delaware, that Lord Baltimore's claim to Del- 
aware was rejected. The patent of Charles the First 
to Lord Baltimore granted a title to lands which were 
inhabited by savages and were uncultivated, but did 
not convey to him lands which civilized men had pos- 
sessed and cultivated. Consequently, Baltimore's 
claim to Delaware was refused because the colonists 
from Christian Holland had for a time possessed Del- 
aware by occupancy. They had not renounced their 
title voluntarily. 16 

Subsequently, the Swedes, under their first American 
Governor, Peter Minuit, himself a Hollander though 
serving Queen Christina of Sweden, started a colony 
in 1638 further north than Zwaanendael, at a spot 
on a stream flowing into the Delaware River where 
they built Fort Christina, the site of the present Wil- 



" Cape "Hoorn" was christened in 1616 by the Hollanders, Le Maire and Schouten. 
Oost ende West-Indische Spieghel waer in beschreven werden de twee laelste Navigation * * * 
De eene door den vermaerden Zeeheldt Joris van Spilbergen * * *. De andere ghedaen by 
Jacob Le Maire; Amsterdam, Jan Janssz, MDCXXI. 

"James Dunlop: The Controversy between William Penn and Lord Baltimore, Mem- 
oirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1864, volume I, page 175. — 
Henry C. Conrad: History of the State of Delaware, Wilmington, Del., 1908, page 14. 



10 

mington in Delaware. Thus the Swedes by right of 
actual occupation and possession, acquired the incho- 
ate title to Delaware that the Dutch colonists had 
won for the United Netherlands by their actual settle- 
ment and occupation seven years earlier of the region 
at Zwaanendael, near the modern Lewes. 17 And so 
the sovereignty of the present State of Delaware like 
those of the Commonwealths of New York and New 
Jersey, begins in Europe with the States General of 
the United Netherlands. But unlike the historic 
development in the case of those latter two colonies or 
States, the sovereignty of Delaware before being trans- 
ferred by conquest into English hands, first passed 
through that of ownership by actual and effective 
occupation in the name of the Swedish crown, and then 
again returned by conquest into the possession of the 
States General of the United Netherlands, from whom 
it in turn was conquered by Englishmen, in the name 
of the King of England. 

The territory which today forms and constitutes 
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, however, alone 
of the States derived from the original thirteen colo- 
nies, looks for the fountain source of her sovereignty 
to the most northern of the three European Nations 
that had a part in the actual establishment of formal 
and recognized governments in the territory of the 
thirteen colonies — Sweden. And so Pennsylvania has 
an especial interest in that Conquering-Statesman- 
King, "The Snow King," surnamed "the Lion of the 
North and Defender of the Faith," who on the Saxon 
battlefield of Lutzen in 1632 defeated the Imperial 
Hapsburg army under Count Wallenstein or Wall- 
stein, and sealed with his heart's blood the indepen- 
dence of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus the Great. 
Consequently, it is eminently appropriate that the 
colors of the flag of the chief city alike in Pennsyl- 



17 Gregory B. Keen: New Sweden, or the Swedes on the Delaware; being chapter IX in 
volume IV of Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, Boston and New York, 
1884. 



11 

vania and the territory of New Sweden, Philadelphia, 
are the blue and yellow of Sweden. 

For when William Usselinx of Antwerp found that 
he oould not persuade the States General of the Neth- 
erlands to take hold of his scheme for a Dutch trading 
and colonizing company to extend Dutch sway and 
possession in the New World, he turned with reluc- 
tance from Holland and in 1624 looked to Sweden for 
aid in the carrying out of his trans-Atlantic plans. 
At Goteborg in October or November of 1624, Gus- 
tavus Adolphus granted him a six hours' interview to 
unfold his plans. On November 4, Usselinx had the 
draft charter of the proposed company ready; then 
the general prospectus of the proposed company was 
issued; and on December 21, 1624, the Swedish King 
gave "Warrant for William Ussling to establish a 
General Company for Trade to Asia, Africa, America 
and Magellanica." 18 Finally, on June 6, 1626, King 
Gustavus Adolphus signed the charter of the South 
Company, to carry on trade beyond the seas and to 
colonize. 19 It was the first forerunner and ancestor 
of that later Swedish Company in whose service Lieu- 
tenant Colonel John Printz, subsequently, starting 
from Goteborg with the two vessels, the Fama {Fame), 
and the Svanen (Swan), crossed the Atlantic Ocean 
in 1642, to become the fourth Governor of New 
Sweden and the first Governor of the territory which 
today constitutes the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 
Printz, like his three predecessors, landed where the 
first Swedish colonists under Minuit built Fort Chris- 
tina, the site of the present city of Wilmington. He 
began his rule there in 1643. Printz, soon after his 
arrival at Fort Christina, made a journey through the 
adjoining territory sailing up the Delaware River as 
far as San Kikan. He decided to change his resi- 
dence and the seat of his government from Fort 



" B. Fernow: Documents relating to the History of the Dutch and Swedish Settlements 
on the Delaware River, Albany, 1877, page 1. 
11 Idem, pages 7-15. 



12 

Christina in Delaware to Tenakongh or Tinicum Is- 
land, situated fifteen miles further up the Delaware 
River and in present day Pennsylvania. It was the 
first capital or seat of government established within 
the territory of the present State of Pennsylvania. 
There Printz built a fort of heavy logs, which he armed 
with four brass cannon. This fort he called in mem- 
ory of the city in Sweden from which his expedition 
had set out to cross the ocean to the New World — 
Nya Goteborg (New Gottenburg). The same name 
was also conferred upon the whole island in a patent 
that his sovereign, Queen Christina, issued on Novem- 
ber 6 following, in which she granted to Governor 
Printz the island "to him and his lawful issue as a 
perpetual possession." Printz built a house for him- 
self at Nya Goteborg which was known as Printzhof. 
About twenty of the colonists, among whom were 
Printz's bookkeeper and clerk, together with their 
families, as well as the Governor's body-guard and the 
crew of his small yacht, settled on the island. Printz 
also constructed a small redoubt on the eastern shore 
of the island, which he christened Nya Elfborg. On 
Tinicum Island Governor Printz had built not later 
than 1646 a small church which was alike the first 
church of Sweden and the first church of any division 
of the church universal that was erected and estab- 
lished in the territory of what is today the Common- 
wealth of Pennsylvania. 20 

Johan Printz was born on July 20, 1592, at Bott- 
nayrd, in Smaland, a province of southern Sweden, 
which looks out upon the Baltic Sea opposite to the 
Islands of Oland and Gothland. 21 After attending 
school in his native Smaland, he was sent to study in 
Germany for a time at the universities of Rostock and 



*° J. Franklin Jameson: William Usselinx, the founder of the Dutch and Swedish West 
India Companies: Papers of the American Historical Association, New York, 1887, 
volume II, no. 3. — Amandus Johnson: The Swedish Settlements on the Delaware, 1638- 
1664, Philadelphia, 1911, published by the Swedish Colonial Society. 

21 Amandus Johnson: The Swedish Settlements on the Delaware, 1638-1664, Philadel- 
phia, 1911, published by the Swedish Colonial Society, volume II, page 688. 



13 

Greifswald. After returning to Sweden, he was 
enabled again, thanks to the generosity in 1620 of his 
sovereign, Gustavus Adolphus, to pursue his studies 
further at the German universities of Leipzig, Witten- 
berg and Jena. Made a prisoner by some soldiers 
he was forced to accompany them in their wander- 
ings as far as Italy. He served for a time in the 
French and Austrian forces, and finally returned once 
more to Sweden in 1625, when he entered the Swedish 
army. In 1630 he was commissioned a captain, in 
1634 he was promoted to the rank of major, in 1635 
and 1636 he saw active service under General Ture 
Bjelke in the Thirty Years' War. Two years later 
he w x as commissioned Lieutenant Colonel in the Swe- 
dish forces and in 1640 as military governor of Chem- 
nitz in western Saxony, he made with the small force 
under his command, a brilliant and courageous though 
unsuccessful defense against the Imperial forces. 
After returning to Sweden once more, he was appointed 
in 1642 to the governorship of New Sweden and was 
knighted in July of that year. His active rule as 
Governor of the colony lasted from early in 1643 to 
the autumn of 1653. Upon his return to Sweden, the 
government appointed him a colonel, in 1657 named 
him Commandant of the Castle of Jonkoping, and the 
next year Governor of Jonkopings Ian. He died on 
the third day of May, 1663. Governor Printz married 
twice, first Elizabeth Bok who died in 1640, and 
second, just before he sailed for New Sweden in 
1642, Maria von Linnestan. A man of large size and 
great weight, he was called by the Indians "the big 
tub." The Hollander de Vries says that he weighed 
more than four hundred pounds. To quote the Dutch 
Captain's descriptive language a propos of the Swedish 
Governor: " Was ghenaemt Capiteyn Prins, eeen kloeck 
Man van posteur die over he vierhundert pondt woeg." 22 
And this description of the physical characteristics of 



22 De Vries, Korte Historiael, page 184. 



14 

Governor Printz is borne out by his portrait in oils 
in Sweden, a copy of which, made by command of 
the present King of Sweden, Gustavus the Fifth, is 
now in the building of the Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania. Upon one side of the canvas is 
painted the coat of arms of Governor Printz. 

The English, both at home and in their North 
American Colonies, protested at the time against the 
right of the Swedish Crown to establish a colony on 
the banks of the Delaware. 23 This protest the Eng- 
lish based upon priority of the discovery of the country 
by their own navigators. Waiving, however, owing 
to historic doubt, the question by the navigators ^f 
which of several European Nations then active in 
exploring the Seven Seas, the River Delaware and the 
adjoining lands, were first discovered, the validity of 
the title of the Swedes to the lands they occupied in 
Pennsylvania and Delaware, apart from having bought 
them from the native Indians, is to be found in the 
celebrated answer that Queen Elizabeth made to the 
Ambassador of Philip the Second of Spain, Mendoza, 
in 1580. In that year, after Sir Francis Drake's 
return from a distant voyage during the course of 
which he had attacked numerous Spanish settlements 
and captured much plunder from Spanish subjects 
both on land and sea, Mendoza, on his master's behalf, 
claimed the sovereignty of all the new found lands from 
the fact that they were first discovered by subjects 
of the King of Spain. To which England's Queen, 
as Camden tells us, replied: 24 "As she did not ac- 
knowledge the Spaniards to have any title by donation 
of the Bishop of Rome, so she knew no right they had 
to any places other than those they were in actual 
possession of; for that their having touched only here 
and there upon a coast, and given names to a few rivers 
or capes, were .such insignificant things as could in no 



M Amandua Johnson: The Swedish Settlements on the Delaware, 1638-1664, Philadel- 
phia, 1911, vol. I, pp. 179, 384; vol. II, pp. 572, 574. 

"* Camden's Annals, 1580: see Translation in Sir Travers Twiss, Oregon Question. 



15 

ways entitle them to a property further than in the 
parts where they actually settled and continued to 
inhabit." The English themselves, as did the nation- 
als of the other great maritime nations of the seven- 
teenth and subsequent centuries, acted repeatedly on 
this principle of the Law of Nations so clearly and 
forcibly enunciated by Queen Elizabeth at the begin- 
ning of the last quarter of the sixteenth century when 
her subjects were seeking in all parts of the new world 
suitable lands where they might plant and extend 
through colonization the sway of the English crown. 
And in subsequent centuries this declaration of inter- 
national policy of England's Virgin Queen was ac- 
cepted again and again both by international pub- 
licists, such as Vattel, Bluntschli, and Rivier, and 
governments, as in the declaration issued by Spain in 
1790 concerning the Nootka Sound controversy, until 
today it is a well recognized rule of International Law 
that discovery alone of a new and unknown land does 
not confer title upon the sovereign of the nation who 
makes the discovery, but merely an inchoate title 
which must be reinforced within a reasonable time by 
an effectual and lasting occupancy in order that that 
inchoate title shall become perfected into a full one 
instead of lapsing gradually away. In the Law of 
Nations as proclaimed by one of England's greatest 
sovereigns with her own lips, a sovereign who was 
herself the incarnation of England's spirit of discovery 
and colonization, the Swedish Crown found ample 
justification and warrant of its title to New Sweden. 
Pennsylvania looks not only for the beginning of 
her sovereignty to Queen Christina and her Chancellor, 
Axel Oxenstierna, and through them to Gustavus 
Adolphus, but Pennsylvania also finds her spiritual 
beginnings in the national historic Church of Sweden. 
As early as September 4, 1646, Magister Campanius 
consecrated a wooden churchat Tenakongh or Tinicum. 
It was built near the fort, the home of Governor 
Printz, and the other buildings that formed the capi- 



16 

tal of New Sweden, the first capital established in the 
territory of what is now comprised within the bounds 
of Pennsylvania. All vestige of that early little parish 
has long since passed away. But the Second Church 
of Sweden built within the bounds of Pennsylvania 
is still a hale though small parish to this day. It was 
in 1677 that a Second Swedish church was started at 
Wicaco on the Delaware, now a part of South Phila- 
delphia. The new parish began to hold its services 
on Trinity Sunday, 1677, when the Rev. Jacob Fabri- 
tius preached his first sermon in the Wicaco block 
house on the site where the present church stands. 
That early and primitive home of the Second Swedish 
Church, all ready to repel an attack, recalls the open- 
ing lines of Gustavus Adolphus' hymn: 

"Fear not, O little flock, the foe 
Who madly seeks your overthrow; 
Dread not his rage and power; 
What tho' your courage sometimes faints, 
His seeming triumph o'er God's saints 
Lasts but a little hour." 

In 1700 the block house was replaced by the present 
handsome brick church which stands on the same site. 
This second home of Gloria Dei, or Old Swede's Church, 
is the oldes t churc h building. Jn P hila delphia today, 
and 




the oldest church in use in 
the State. Old Swede's, which has been visited by 
many notable Americans, among them General Grant, 
and foreigners, among them an Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, contains among its treasures a letter of Gustavus 
Adolphus presented to Gloria Dei in 1892 by Ferdi- 
nand J. Dreer. It reads as follows: 

"Gustavus Adolphus, by the grace of God, King of Sweden, 
Grand Duke of Finland, Duke of Estland and Curland, Lord 
of Ingermerland. 

" Our favor and gracious will by the ordinance of God. We 
perceive, faithful servants, that the Minister Carlin, in the 



17 

parish of Slaka, is both old and blind, so he is hardly able to 
provide for his support. Therefore, we have graciously re- 
lieved him from the duty to pay the ransom of Elfsborg. 
You shall therefore not claim that of him. Commanding you 
in the will of God, 

" Gustavus Adolphus. 

"Dated at Linkoping, June 7, 1618." 

Among the pastors of Old Swede's the most widely 
known probably was the Rev. Charles Magnus von 
Wrangel. Descended from Karl Gustaf, Count Wran- 
gel, a general of the Thirty Years' War, he was edu- 
cated at Vestras and the University of Upsala, and 
received, in 1757 from the University of Gottingen, 
the degree of D.D. In 1759 he was appointed to the 
provostship of the Swedish churches in "New Swe- 
den," and arrived in Philadelphia the same year. He 
took charge personally of Wicaco parish, and in addi- 
tion had the oversight of all the Swedish congrega- 
tions in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In 1768 he 
returned to Sweden where he was given the pastorate 
of Sala. 

Since the territory now known as Pennsylvania 
goes back for the beginning of both its civil and re- 
ligious life to Sweden, it seems eminently fitting and 
appropriate in the chief city of the territory which 
during a part of the seventeenth century was New 
Sweden, that on Flag Day with the red, white and blue 
of the stars and stripes of the Union are mingled the 
colors of the city of Philadelphia, the blue and yellow 
of Sweden. 

The thirteen colonies that sprang from three of the 
northern Nations of Europe — England, Holland and 
Sweden — and united to found the United States of 
America, can look back to three historic figures, Eliza- 
beth of England after whom Virginia was named, 
Father William of the Netherlands, surnamed the 
Silent, and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, the victor 
of Lutzen — all three worthy prototypes of our own 
national father, George Washington. 



18 

II. Pennsylvania has contributed her share, her 
full share towards the development of the idea and 
practice that Nations shall settle their difficulties in 
peace according to the legal merits of each individual 
case, rather than by an appeal to war. 

First the Swedes managed their relations with the 
Indians in peace, and anyone who has travelled in 
Sweden, and seen how humanely the horses are treated 
there, will not be surprised at the success of the Swedes 
in maintaining harmonious relations with the aborigi- 
nes in New Sweden. Following in the wake of the 
Swedish rule, the Hollanders in Pennsylvania also 
managed to live without waging war on the Red Men. 
The peaceful beginnings thus happily inaugurated by 
the Swedes and the Hollanders, were followed and 
maintained for a long time under English rule, espe- 
cially by the Quakers under William Penn. 

Besides Penn, the most prominent of the Quakers, 
and so a believer in passive non-resistance, contributed 
to spread in the world, and more especially in the 
English speaking world, the idea that the peoples 
would be better off if wars between Nations could be 
avoided. In 1693 after he had tried for a dozen years 
in Pennsylvania his theories of government he pub- 
lished at London, " An Essay towards the present and 
future peace of Europe, by the establishment of an 
European Dyet, Parliament or Estates." This work 
was reprinted several times. 25 

Just as Grotius's immortal treatise, De juri belli 
ac pacts, was inspired by the horrors of the Thirty 
Years' War which the Hollander saw raging all about 
him in Europe, so Penn's essay was inspired probably 
by the fierce struggle that was waged by a large part 
of Europe under the lead of William of Orange against 
Louis the Fourteenth for about a decade until it was 



* Besides the edition of 1693, a second edition was printed in 1696. The essay wa« 
also reprinted in, A Collection of the Works of William Penn, published at London, 1726, 
volume II, pages 838-848. This work may also be found reprinted in toto in Publication* 
of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Contributions to American History," Philadelphia, 
1858, pages 265-281. 



19 

concluded by the two treaties of Ryswick in 1697. 
Impressed, undoubtedly, by the great destruction of 
both life and property while that war was going on, 
as well as the great disturbance which it caused to the 
commerce of Europe, Penn sought in his essay to 
point out "the desirableness of peace and the truest 
means of it," both for that time and the future 
as well. 

In the beginning of his essay after advocating the 
advantages of peace, Penn insisted that the best way 
to maintain it was to administer justice among the 
powers. "As Justice is a Preserver, so it is a better 
Procurer of Peace," he says, "than War * * * * The 
Advantage that Justice has upon War is seen by the 
Success of Embassies, that so often prevent War by 
hearing the Pleas and Memorials of Justice in the 
Hands and Mouths of the Wronged Party. * * * I 
say, Justice is the means of Peace, betwixt the Govern- 
ment and the People, and one Man and Company and 
another. It prevents Strife, and at last ends it: For 
besides Shame or Fear, to contend longer, he or they 
being under Government, are constrained to bound their 
Desires and Resentment with the Satisfaction the Law 
gives. Thus Peace is maintained by Justice, which is 
a Fruit of Government, as Government is from Society, 
and Society from Consent." Then Penn briefly de- 
scribed the origin of Government and showed that it 
is necessary in order to avoid a general confusion and 
disorder in the community. "Government then," 
he said, "is the Prevention or Cure of Disorder, and the 
Means of Justice, as that is of Peace: For this Cause 
they have Sessions, Terms, Assizes, and Parliaments, 
to overrule Men's Passions and Resentments, that they 
may not be Judges in their own Cause, nor Punishers 
of their own Wrongs." 

Next he takes up the question of obtaining and 
maintaining peace throughout Europe. He argues 
that the Sovereign Princes of Europe should send, in 
order to obtain that end, Deputies to represent them 



20 

in a General Dyet, Estates or Parliament. That 
Parliament, after debate, should decide on rules of 
conduct that should be binding on the Princes in their 
dealings with one another, so that the relations between 
them should be established and maintained on a basis 
of justice. Further, he suggested that this Assembly 
or Parliament of the Sovereigns should meet at regular 
intervals, either yearly or every two years, or every 
three years. This Assembly was to be called The 
Sovereign or Imperial Dyet, Parliament, or State of 
Europe. All causes of disputes arising between two 
or more sovereignties that could not be adjusted by 
ordinary diplomatic means, were to be brought for 
final settlement before this Parliamentary gathering. 
If any State which became a party to such a Par- 
liament, should refuse to abide by the decree of the 
Parliament in a case affecting that State, and that 
same State should seek a remedy by taking up arms, 
"all the other Sovereignties, United as One Strength, 
shall compel the Submission and Performance of the 
Sentence, with Damages to the Suffering Party, and 
Charges to the Sovereignties that obliged their Sub- 
mission." Peace would then be assured, to Europe, 
as no one Sovereignty in Europe would have the power 
to dispute the conclusion arrived at by such a league 
of Princes as such an Assembly or Parliament would 
represent, just as an individual is forced to bow before 
the decision of a municipal court representing the 
collective will of society. Thus Penn's plan for ob- 
taining a European peace, was a scheme to group 
into a general alliance the different States of Europe: 
and further, to give this general European alliance 
effective means to maintain peace, the various sover- 
eignties of Europe were to send deputies to a European 
Congress whose function it should be to settle the 
differences between its member States upon a basis of 
justice. In case a member State rebelled against the 
decree of that Assembly against that State, then it 
should be forced to bow to the decision of the European 



21 

Parliament by all other member States uniting against 
that one recalcitrant State, even if necessary with 
force of arms. 

After dividing the causes for war into three general 
classes, to wit, first to keep what a State has, secondly 
to recover what it has unjustly lost, and thirdly to 
increase its dominions, and, making some observa- 
tions and suggestions as to what constitutes a good title 
to sovereignty over land, Penn discussed how his pro- 
posed General Parliament or " Imperial State" should 
be composed. He suggested that the revenues of the 
various sovereignties of Europe should be taken as 
the basis of representation in the European Parliament. 
In Penn's estimation the Germanic Empire would be 
entitled to ten votes in the Parliament, France to ten, 
Spain ten, and so on until to Courland he assigned one 
vote. He even wished to take in Muscovy and Tur- 
key, allotting to each of those Powers ten votes. The 
total would have amounted to ninety votes. "A 
great Presence," he says, "when they represent the 
Fourth, and now the Best and Wealthiest Part of the 
Known World." 

Then, after discussing the procedure of the proposed 
European Parliament when it held its sessions, Penn 
considered the possible objections that might be urged 
against his proposed Parliament. Next he devoted 
almost a third of his essay to expounding the benefits 
that would accrue to humanity from the maintenance 
of peace. Among these advantages he argued that 
money would be saved to prince and people alike. 

In conclusion he says that, just as parents rule their 
families and households, magistrates their cities, es- 
tates their Republics, and Kings and princes their 
dominions by rules based upon the principles of jus- 
tice, so, too, Europe may obtain and maintain peace 
among her various member States. Referring to Sir 
William Temple's Account of the United Provinces, 
he holds up the Dutch Netherlands as a concrete ex- 
ample of how his scheme for the maintenance of peace 



22 

in Europe would work out, "For there we shall find," 
he says, "Three Degrees of Sovereignties to make up 
every Sovereignty in the General States. I will 
reckon them backwards: First, The States General 
themselves; then the Immediate Sovereignties that 
constitute them, which are those of the Provinces, 
answerable to the Sovereignties of Europe, that by their 
Deputies are to compose the European Dyet, Parlia- 
ment or Estates in our proposal. And then there are 
the several cities of each Province, that are so many 
Independent or Distinct Sovereignties, which compose 
those of the Provinces, as those of the Provinces do 
compose the States General at the Hague." At the 
very end of the essay, Penn, at the same time that he 
acknowledged his indebtedness to the Grand dessein 
of Henry of Navarre, paid that far-seeing though 
somewhat light-hearted King a great tribute for having 
proposed to bring peace to Europe by a general fed- 
eration of her Sovereignties. Penn did not realize 
that Henry the Fourth's plan as expounded by Sully 
— or was it as some historians have thought, Sully's 
own idea — was to readjust the standing of power of 
the various European sovereigns so that the House 
of France should displace the House of Austria as the 
leading power of the world, nor did Penn see any more 
than other publicists and statesmen of his time that 
Henry planned to accomplish in reality his aim not by 
peaceful means, but by an appeal to arms. 26 Like 
most of the irenists — to use the word coined by the 
Abbe Castel de Saint Pierre to designate a worker for 
the maintenance of peace between the Nations — down 
until after the Congress of Vienna, Penn sought to 
eliminate war with one great stroke of state craft. 
Like the rest of humanity, until the middle of the nine- 
teenth century, he was totally unconscious that in 



30 Th. Kiikelhaus: Der Ur sprung des Planes von Ewiger Frieden in den Memoiren der 
Herzogs von Sully, Berlin 1893. — Charles Pfister: Les "Economies royales" de Sully el 
le grand dessein de Henri Quatre: Revue Historique, Paris, 1894, volumes 54, 55, 56. — 
Thomas Willing Blach: Emeric Cruci, Philadelphia, 1900; The New Cyneas of Emeria 
Cruci, Philadelphia, 1909, page xviii. 



23 

human affairs just as in the countless progressions and 
recessions that are going on perpetually in the universe, 
change is wrought out by slow and gradual steps. 

Penn's essay, however, owing to his personality and 
fame, served to make known to the English-speaking 
world the idea for a general peace among the Nations 
which had received such a great impetus from the plan 
put forward in the name of so determined a warrior 
as Henry the Fourth of France. In that way, like 
Henry the Fourth and the Due de Sully, Emeric Cruce\ 
the Abbe* Castel de Saint Pierre, Carinal Alberoni, 
Emmanuel Kant and others, William Penn contri- 
buted materially to the advance of the cause of inter- 
national peace in the world in general. And more 
especially in his own Province of Pennsylvania, where 
he established a home for his persecuted co-religion- 
ists, and also extended a welcome to peoples of several 
races who represented by their beliefs many branches 
of the Church Universal, Penn's essay undoubtedly 
bore fruit in helping to bring about a peaceful adjust- 
ment of boundary disputes between various of the 
Provinces of North America. 27 

One of these — the Wyoming controversy between 
Pennsylvania and Connecticut — was finally estab- 
lished upon legal grounds by an appeal to a Court of 
Justice. 

In 1754, two generations and a half after James the 
Second's grant to Penn of Pennsylvania, which grant 
Penn had reinforced and consummated by actually 
occupying the province through the establishment of 
settlements within its bounds, a movement started 
among the people of the colony of Connecticut to 
occupy and settle — regardless of the proprietary rights 
of Penn and his successors under the grant from King 
James the Second — upon some of the lands along the 
east branch of the Susquehanna River. In 1754, 
the Susquehanna Company, which was composed of 

27 An interesting account of the Penn vs. Baltimore controversy is promised in Charles 
Penrose Keith's forthcoming book, Chronicles of Pennsylvania, 1688-1748. 



24 

Connecticut people, purchased from "the Five Na- 
tions of Indians called The Iroquois" for the sum of 
two thousand pounds of the money current in the 
colony of New York, lands on the Susquehanna River 
between the 41st and 43rd degrees of north latitude. 
The grant conveying title from the Iroquois to the 
Susquehanna Company was signed July 11, 1754. 28 
The Connecticut colonists based their rights to settle 
among the Susquehanna, in what became known as 
the Wyoming valley, upon the ground that Connec- 
ticut stretched westward to the Pacific Ocean, always 
excepting the territory that belonged to the interven- 
ing colonies of New York and New Jersey. It was 
not, however, until 1763, that people from Connec- 
ticut settled in the Wyoming Valley. As might natu- 
rally be supposed this appropriation by Connecticut 
settlers of lands that came within the grant to William 
Penn, without consulting the proprietors of Pennsyl- 
vania, led to a dispute first in words, then in deeds, 
which ultimately resulted in a state of war on a small 
scale between the people of Pennsylvania and the 
Connecticut settlers or intruders as they were called 
by the Pennsylvanians. In the beginning, the Colony 
of Connecticut did not countenance the claims of the 
Susquehanna Company, and did not recognize in 
any way that the town of Westmoreland in the Wy- 
oming Valley was an integral part of the colony of 
Connecticut. But owing to the determined opposi- 
tion of the proprietors of Pennsylvania to the Connec- 
ticut settlers, the Assembly of Connecticut, after 
consulting eminent counsel in England, decided on 
October 2, 1773 29 , to extend its jurisdiction "to those 
Lands contained within the Limits and Bounds of the 
Charter of this Colony, Westward of the Province of 
New York." 

28 Original manuscript in the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 
Connecticut Claims Papers. 

" Pennsylvania Archives, second series, edited by William H. Egle, Hairisburg, 1890, 
volume XVIII, page 170. 



25 

With that object in view Connecticut sent a com- 
mittee of three — Colonel Dyer, Dr. Johnson, and Mr. 
Strong — to Philadelphia to treat with John Penn, the 
Proprietary Governor of Pennsylvania. Governor 
Penn told the gentlemen from Connecticut that there 
was no need to negotiate as to the boundaries of Penn- 
sylvania and Connecticut. He maintained that the 
western bounds of Connecticut had been settled 
''about two years after the Date of their charter, 
under the authority of a Royal Commission, and 
solemnly assented to, ratified and confirmed by the 
Governor and Commissioners of their own Colony; 
that, after this Settlement, the Grant of Pennsylvania 
was made to William Penn, and that it was not un- 
derstood at that time by the Crown, nor by the 
Grantee, William Penn, nor by any other persons 
since so far as he had heard, that the said grant any 
way intrenched upon or approached near, any of the 
New England grants, till the late claim was set up 
on the part of Connecticut. " 30 Governor Penn refused 
to join in an application to the Crown for the appoint- 
ment of commissioners as Connecticut wished to 
review and decide the boundaries between them, 
" because that would be admitting what he totally 
denied," to wit, that the territorial claims of Penn- 
sylvania and Connecticut in any way conflicted. 
Governor Penn maintained "that His Majesty in 
Council, was the only proper and constitutional 
Tribunal for a Decision of this kind." As he was 
anxious to have the difficulty brought before that 
Court for settlement, if the Colony of Connecticut 
would not take an appeal of the question to the King 
and his Privy Council, he would himself invite, he 
said, His Majesty, King George, to take the matter 
under consideration. 

The dispute, as it grew in importance, attracted 
more general notice. The Rev. William Smith, Pro- 

30 Pennsylvania Archives, second series, edited by W. H. Egle, Harrisburg, 1890, vol- 
ume XVIII, page 171, et seq. 



26 

vost of the University of Pennsylvania 31 and Roger 
Sherman of Connecticut, 32 both wrote essays in sup- 
port of the rights of their respective colonies. 

On the 16th of February, 1775, the Proprietors of 
Pennsylvania once more, as on several occasions in 
former years, addressed "To the King's most excellent 
Majesty in Council" a petition in which they exam- 
ined the question in dispute in detail. 33 Inter alia, 
the proprietors said: 

"The Dutch territory of New Netherlands com- 
prehended what is now New York, New Jersey and 
the settlements upon Delaware River now called the 
three Lower Counties — from the accession of King 
James the 2nd New York has been in the Crown, New 
Jersey had been granted by King James when Duke 
of York to proprietaries who afterwards surrend d . 
the Government to the Crown but the right of the 
soil rem 8 , in them. The settlements on the River 
Delaware were granted by the Duke of York to the 
s d Wm. Penn your pet r Tho 9 Penn's Father. All 
these countries lie to the westward and great part of 
them in the Latitude of Connecticut." Then they 
stated once more much evidence that on previous 
occasions they had submitted to the King and the 
Privy Council in support of the grant to Penn and 
against the Connecticut claims to the Wyoming lands. 

Thus the petitioners referred to the fact that at the 
time Charles the Second granted to Penn the charter 
of Pennsylvania, Connecticut made no objection to 
the granting of the charter, nor did Connecticut lay 
claims to lands west of New York and New Jersey 
until "about the year 1755 when it was pretended" 
that under the Connecticut charter, the Connecticut 



31 William Smith: An Examination of the Connecticut Claim to lands in Pennsylvania, 
1774; Pennsylvania Archives, second series, edited by W. H. Egle, Harrisburg, 1890, 
vol. XVIII, pp. 125-214. 

32 Roger Sherman in John Sanderson's Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of 
Independence, Philadelphia, 1823, vol. Ill, pp. 240-248. 

33 Manuscript in the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Penn. 
MSS., Connecticut Claims. 



27 

people "had a right to skip over New York and New 
Jersey," and to claim the extent of the latitude of 
Connecticut westward all the way to the Pacific 
Ocean or South Sea as it was called. In that way the 
Connecticut people would take away one-third of 
the land that Charles the Second had granted to 
William Penn. Many other pertinent facts were pre- 
sented in support of the claims of the proprietors of 
Pennsylvania to the Wyoming Valley lands. The 
petition finished by praying His Majesty the King to 
declare that Connecticut was bounded on the west 
by the Province of New York. 

Then, as the struggle between the thirteen English 
colonies and their mother land developed, and the 
possibility of Pennsylvania appealing the Wyoming 
controversy to the King in Council passed away, the 
Keystone Colony brought that dispute to the notice 
of the Continental Congress. 

On September 30, 1775, the Assembly of Pennsyl- 
vania discussed "the Intrusion of a Number of 
People into this Province, under a pretended Claim 
of the Colony of Connecticut, to the great Annoyance 
of the good People of this Province," and instructed 
the delegates of Pennsylvania in the Continental 
Congress which was sitting in Philadelphia in the 
State House of Pennsylvania, to bring the dispute 
to the attention of the Congress. 34 

In the early days of October, 1775, Ross accordingly 
presented to the Congress this resolution of the Penn- 
sylvania Assembly. John Rutledge of South Caro- 
lina moved that the papers should be referred to the 
delegates of the two colonies. Whereupon, Thomas 
Willing of the Pennsylvania delegation, a Justice of 
the Supreme Court of that Province, pointed out that 
the delegates of the two colonies were interested 
parties to the controversy and said that they would 
need an umpire to reach a settlement. Roger Sher- 

34 Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania, 
Philadelphia, 1776, volume VI, page 619. 



28 

man, a Connecticut delegate, however, thought the 
two delegations might be able to agree on a temporary 
line. 35 

When the delegations of the two States, to whom 
Congress had referred the matter could not come to 
an agreement concerning the question, the whole 
matter was referred to a committee consisting of 
Rutledge, Chase, Jefferson, Kinsey and Hopkins. 36 
Time wore on, the people of Pennsylvania and the 
Connecticut intruders came to blows and blood was 
shed. Congress decided, on December 20, 1775, 
that the contending parties should at once cease all 
hostilities, "until the dispute can be legally decided." 37 
Finally as the result of the ill feeling engendered, 
troops had to be sent to the seat of trouble to keep 
the peace between them. 38 Owing to the war with 
Great Britain, however, these troops were soon ordered 
to join General Washington and the Wyoming colo- 
nists found themselves left on the frontier to repulse 
an attack of the English and the Indians. 

By the ninth article of the Articles of Confederation, 
provision was made for the establishment of a series 
of Courts of Appeal to try differences between the 
various colonies, each Court being established ad hoc 
to hear one particular case. 39 

Accordingly, the State of Pennsylvania, following 
her earlier practice in the controversy, when she was 
a colony, of appealing this case to the King in Council, 
petitioned Congress on November 3, 1781, according 
to the ninth article, for a hearing to settle the ques- 
tion. 40 There were many delays. On November 
14, 1781, Congress agreed to appoint June 4, 1782, as 

36 John Adams: Works, Boston, 1850, volume II, page 465. 

» Journal of the Continental Congress 1774-1789, edited by Worthington C. Ford, 
Washington, 1905, volume III, pages 295; John Sanderson: Biography of the Signers of 
the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, 1823, page 250. 

" Journal of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, edited by Worthington C. Ford, 
Washington, 1905, volume III, page 439. 

S8 Idem, volume V, pages 698-9. 

39 See the Ninth Article of the Articles of Confederation. 

40 Journal of Congress, Philadelphia, 1800, volume VII, page 169. 



29 

the date for Pennsylvania and Connecticut to put in 
an appearance, "by their lawful agents, at the place 
in which Congress shall then be sitting" 41 and the 
Congress further voted to send a formal notice to the 
legislative authorities of the State of Connecticut 
that that Commonwealth, as well as Pennsylvania, 
must put in an appearance before Congress on June 
4, (sic) 1782. On June 24, (sic) 1782, Pennsylvania 
appeared before Congress through her properly ac- 
credited counsel and agents, William Bradford, Joseph 
Reed, James Wilson and Jonathan Dickinson Ser- 
geant. Her agent was Henry Osborn. Connecticut 
had appointed Eliphalet Dyer, William Samuel John- 
son and Jesse Root to represent her on that occasion, 
but only Dyer was present and so the question had 
to be continued until the next month. 

On July 16, the matter was again taken up. Penn- 
sylvania was represented by Wilson and Sergeant, 
with Osborn as their agent, and Connecticut by Dyer 
and Root. After some discussion, Congress finally 
resolved : 

"That the agents of Pennsylvania and Connecticut 
be, and they are hereby directed to appoint by joint 
consent, commissioners or judges to constitute a 
Court for hearing and determining the matter in 
question, agreeably to the 9th article of the Con- 
federation." 42 

On August 12, 1782, the agents for the Common- 
wealth of Pennsylvania, and the State of Connecticut 
reported that, in accordance with the resolution of 
Congress of July 16, they had appointed as "com- 
missioners to constitute a court for hearing and de- 
termining" the controversy between Pennsylvania 
and Connecticut, William Whipple, of New Hamp- 
shire, Nathanael Greene, of Rhode Island, David 
Brearly and William Churchill Houston, of New 

11 Journal of Congress, containing their proceedings from January 1, 1781, to Novem- 
ber 2, 1782. Philadelphia, 1800, volume VII, page 174. 

42 Journal of Congress: Philadelphia, 1800, volume VII, page 315. 



30 

Jersey, Cyrus Griffin and Joseph Jones, of Virginia, 
and John Rutledge of South Carolina. 43 "Any five 
or more of whom," the agents went on to say in their 
report, "we have agreed shall constitute a Court, 
and have authority to proceed and determine the 
matter and difference between the said States." As 
Nathanael Greene and John Rutledge declined to 
serve, Thomas Nelson, of Virginia, and Welcome 
Arnold, of Rhode Island, were named in their stead. 44 
Congress ratified the appointments. 45 

The Court was commissioned to convene at Tren- 
ton, in the State of New Jersey. On November 8, 
1782, a quorum of the members of the Tribunal being 
in attendance, the Court began to try the case and 
sat for that purpose until December 30. The counsel 
for Pennsylvania were James Wilson, Joseph Reed, 
Jonathan D. Sergeant and William Bradford. Con- 
necticut was represented by Eliphalet Dyer, Jesse 
Root and William S. Johnson. 46 The arguments of the 
counsel have not come down to us, but the briefs have, 
and show great learning and much work on the part of 
the legal representatives of both States in their efforts 
to win the case for their respective Commonwealths. 

Thus Root, speaking first for Connecticut, argued 
inter alia that "By every principle of Law, Justice and 
policy, " the Court should decide for Connecticut. ' ' The 
Crown Title ought to be secure against the Crown." 
"Property belongs to the first discoverer, because he 
providentially stumbled upon it. When a Nation 
discovers a Vacant Country they have a Right to it." 

He cited also many grants to land from the Crown. 47 



43 Journal of Congress: Philadelphia, 1800, volume VII, page 331. 

44 Journal of Congress: Philadelphia, 1800, volume VII, page 335. 

44 Journal of Congress: Philadelphia, 1800, volume VII, page 336. "Whereupon, 
Ordered, That the Secretary prepare and report the draught of a commission for the said 
William Whipple, Welcome Arnold, David Brearly, William Churchill Houston, Cyrus 
Griffin, Joseph Jones and Thomas Nelson, or any five or more of them, as commissioners 
or judges nominated by the States of Pennsylvania and Connecticut, to determine the 
dispute between the said States agreeable to the 9th article of the Confederation." 

16 Pennsylvania Archives, second series, edited by William H. Egle, Harrisburg, 1890. 
volume XVIII, page 621. 



31 

Wilson for Pennsylvania maintained that Connec- 
ticut's "Charter never extended westw'd of N. Y.," 
and "if it ever did she had long since lost that right." 
He advanced many other points and cited Grotius, 
Puffendorf, Vattel, and other authorities in support 
of his argument. 48 

Dr. Johnson, speaking for Connecticut, said: "In- 
dian title is vague and uncertain. Show no title valid 
but the Crown Title. The question is a question of 
Right, & Right & Title are synonymous in this Ques- 
tion. Every Title must be established according to 
the Laws of the Country. The General Laws of 
America must be the ground on which this question 
is to be decided. The Law as it stood at the Time of 
the acquisition is binding. The feudal system was 
the Law of all the Nations of Europe at the Time of 
the Discovery of America. The French, Spanish 
& Portuguese adopted the erroneous system of con- 
quest. The English & Dutch the more human sys- 
tem of Humanity. The Indian Title is subordinate 
to the Crown Title and can never be set up against it. 
Indian titles uncertain and cannot be depended on." 
He brought forward other thoughts and referred to 
Vattel and other publicists. 49 

Replying for Pennsylvania, Sergeant urged: "Right 
of Discovery. King James could not deny the Right 
of the Dutch, though he wished to abridge it." And 
again: "Who had the best right to the lands in 
Dispute, the oldest and nearest Settlers to those lands 
or the most remote and junior settlements. If the 
King had divested himself of the Jurisdiction over the 
lands mentioned in the Charter of C: why do the 
Susq'a. Co'y apply and the C: Assembly recommend 
them to the Crown for a new Grant?" Further on 
Sergeant argued: "The purchase made from the In- 
dians on Delaware were made by the people of N. 



47 Pennsylvania Archives, volume XVIII, page 621. 
*' Pennsylvania Archives, volume XVIII, page 622. 
*' Pennsylvania Archives, volume XVIII, page 623. 



32 

Haven, then a separate Gov't from Con't. They 
were made by people who then deny'd the Charter of 
Con't. all the Authority it would give." He referred 
to the dispute in the middle of the seventeenth century 
between the Hollanders of New Netherland and the 
English of Connecticut as to their boundary limits, 
and the claim of the Dutch on the Connecticut or 
Fresh River, which Connecticut successfully disputed. 50 

General Reed, who also spoke for Pennsylvania, 
maintained, "The Title of the Penns' stands on the 
clearest ground abstracted from that of Connec't. 
Our Title consists of both the Crown and the Indian 
title. That all titles should be derived from the 
Crown is the law of Britain and only applicable to 
Britain. 3 Histch. 30. " 51 

Before the members of the Trenton Inter-State 
Court decided the case, they agreed that the reasons 
for their conclusions should never be given, and that 
the decision should go forth to the world as the unan- 
imous opinion of the Court. 

The decision of the Court was handed down on 
December 30th. It was concise, clear and final. 
The court held : 

"This Cause has been well argued by the Learned Council 
on both sides. 

"The Court are now to pronounce their Sentence, or Judg- 
ment. 

"We are unanimously of Opinion that the State of Connecti- 
cut has no right to the Lands in controversy. 

"We are also unanimously of Opinion that the Jurisdiction 
and Preemption of all the Territory lying within the Charter 
boundary of Pennsylvania and now claimed by the State of 
Connecticut do of Right belong to the State of Pennsylvania. 

"WM. WHIPPLE 
WELCOME ARNOLD 
DAV'D BREARLY 
CYRUS GRIFFIN 
WM. C. HOUSTON. 
"Trenton, 30th Dec'r, 1782." 



61 Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd Series, volume XVIII, page 629. 
60 Pennsylvania Archives, volume XVIII, page 626. 



33 



The decision effectually put an end to the dispute 
of jurisdiction and possession, as to whether Pennsyl- 
vania or Connecticut was entitled to the lands that 
both States claimed, in favor of the Keystone State. 
As soon as the decision was known, President John 
Dickinson of Pennsylvania issued a proclamation for- 
bidding any violence on the part of individuals to 
gain possession of disputed land claims. One of the 
judges of the Court, Griffin, in a letter to President 
Dickinson said: "This I will undertake to say, that 
no Court ever met and decided a great question less 
subject to partiality or corruption, or in which more 
candor and freedom of debate were exercised. * * * 
I can assure you, sir, that the commissioners were 
unanimously of opinion that the private right of soil 
should not be affected by the decision." 52 

The decision shows conclusively that the Trenton 
Inter-State Tribunal sat as a Court to award justice 
upon legal grounds, and not as a board of mediation 
to effect a reconciliation of the conflicting claims upon 
the basis of a compromise. 

Pennsylvania has made also through two of her 
citizens two important contributions to the develop- 
ment of international justice as a means of settling 
the differences that arise between the members of the 
Family of Nations in peace instead of by war. It was 
a member of the Philadelphia Bar, a Marylander by 
inheritance, a Virginian by birth, a Pennsylvanian 
by adoption, who first proposed that great Interna- 
tional Tribunal of Justice that sat at Geneva in 1871 
and 1872 upon the well known Alabama claims. 53 
The submission of those claims to that justly famous 
Court and the ready acceptance of its decision by the 
defeated Nation marked an epoch in the development 



52 Pennsylvania Archives, second series, Harrisburg, 1890, pages 631-632. 

'" 3 The New York Tribune, May 13, 1865, page 4: Social Science, England, March 
15, 1867. Thomas Balch: International Courts of Arbitration, The Law Magazine and 
Review, London, November, 1874; also reprinted at Cambridge, Mass.. at the Riverside 
Press as a separate essay, 1874. 



34 

and advance of international justice as a means of 
avoiding war to settle the disputes of sovereign and 
independent States. A second important contribu- 
tion to the lessening of war was made likewise by a 
citizen of the Keystone State. A Scotchman by 
birth, but a Pennsylvanian by adoption, Andrew 
Carnegie, out of the vast fortune that he made in 
manufacturing at Pittsburgh, gave the money to 
construct at The Hague a home — le Palais de la Paix 
— for the International Courts which are in the future 
to judge some of the disputes that arise between the 
Nations. So as we review Pennsylvania's contribu- 
tions to the development of maintaining peace among 
the Nations through the application of legal justice 
in solving the differences between Nations, it is evi- 
dent that the Keystone State has supplied her full 
quota and more too. 

III. Finally, before closing this paper, I wish to 
tell you something of an ancient Philadelphia insti- 
tution — the historic Assembly balls. 

Taking into account the difference in the state of 
social development existing in Europe in the fifth and 
sixth centuries from that obtaining in the seventeenth, 
there is a striking analogy between the beginnings of 
the Republic of Venice and the rise of the thirteen 
colonies which were in time welded into our present 
country. In both cases the early settlers fled from 
their original homes, in the case of Venice on account 
of the ravages of Attila and other conquering warriors; 
in the case of the thirteen colonies, because of the per- 
secution of both Church and State. And in both 
instances these refugees and pioneers came mostly 
from the humbler ranks of society. In each case, 
however, before long an aristocracy arose, which in 
Venice ruled for many centuries, while in America 
it gave place with the war for independence to the 
ever rising tide of Democracy. 

The best of the early colonists who settled in the 
thirteen colonies, belonged in their homes in Europe 



35 

either to the yeomanry or to the small tradesmen. 
They braved the dangers and hardships of the Atlantic 
passage of those days and the vicissitudes of founding 
a new home in a wild and virgin land for the most 
part, because either of political or religious persecu- 
tion in the old world. Mixed in with these resolute 
and God-fearing people, of whatever branch of the 
Church universal, were immigrants who crossed the 
ocean to better their fortune economically. In addi- 
tion to these, adventurers and other less desirable 
individuals settled in the colonies. Those of the 
immigrants who belonged at home either to the gentry 
or the nobility, as, for example, the Brookes of Mary- 
land, and the Fairfaxes of Virginia, or to the important 
mercantile classes, as the Willings of Pennsylvania, 
who came from Bristol, and the Van Rensselaers of 
New York, who came from Amsterdam, were few in 
numbers. Thus Pennsylvania, like her twelve sister 
colonies, and doubtless like all colonies in all times, 
was not peopled by the aristocracy of the mother 
lands. 

At first the Swedes and the Dutch who were forced 
to struggle with nature, had not time for much social 
gayeties, and besides their numbers were small. 
And when the English under Penn came in, the 
Quaker element for a time repressed anything of the 
kind. When there had risen, however, through more 
than one generation of services to the colony a Penn- 
sylvania aristocracy, through whom the Penns ruled 
their Province, the need and desire for social functions 
of importance developed. As a result the Philadel- 
phia Assemblies were started in the winter of 1748-49, 
by four young men, John Swift, John Inglis, John 
Wallace and Lynford Lardner. Those balls were 
begun several years before the organization of the 
Saint Cecilia Society of Charleston, South Carolina, 
which also gives dances, and the Philadelphia Assem- 
blies antedate by many years anything of the kind 
now going on in any other city in the country. The 



36 



raiaon d'etre for these balls was the rise in Philadelphia 
of a commercial gentry. And so, when John Swift 
and his three young associates organized in the winter 
of 1748-49 a series of nine dancing parties or assem- 
blies, as they were called, at which games of cards were 
played by the older members of the assembly, their 
success was immediate. From that winter until the 
present time, those balls have been carried on. It 
is true, that, owing to war and various other causes, 
the balls have not been given each year. Yet the 
Assemblies of today are the historic successors of the 
first series given in 1748-49. In that first season 
there were fifty-nine gentlemen who subscribed forty 
shillings apiece. Here are their names: 

A LIST 64 
Of Subscribers for An Assembly, under the direction of John 
Inglis, Lynford Lardner, John Wallace and John Swift: each 
subscription, forty shillings, to be paid to any of the Directors 
at subscribing. 



Alex r . Hamilton, 

Tho. Lawrence, Jr., 

John Wallace, 

Phineas Bond, 

Ch 8 Willing, 

Joseph Shippen, 

Sam. McCall, Jun r , 

George McCall, 

Edw. Jones, 

Samuel McCall, Sen r , 

Redm. Conyngham, 

Jos. Sims, 

Thomas Lawrence, Sen 1- ., 

David Mcllvaine. 

John Wilcocks, 

Charles Stedman, 

John Kidd, 

Wm. Bingham, 

Buckridge Sims, 

John Swift, 

John Kearsley, Jun r ., 



James Hamilton, 
Ro. Mackinen, 
Wm. Allen, 
Arch d McCall, 
Jos. Turner, 
Thos. Hopkinson. 
Rich d Peters, 
Adam Thomson, 
Alex r Stedman, 
Patrick Baird, 
John Sober, 
David Franks, 
John Inglis, 
Ninian Wischeart, 
Abram Taylor, 
James Trotter. 
Samson Levy, 
Lynford Lardner, 
Rich d Hill, Jr., 
Benj. Frill, 
Jn. Francis, 



bl Thomas Balch. Letters and Papers relating chiefly to the Provincial History of Penn- 
sylvania, Philadelphia, 1855, pages 6-7. 



37 

Wm. Plumsted, William Mcllvaine, 

Andrew Elliot, Will™ Humphreys, 

James Burd, Thos. White, 

Wm. Peters, • John Lawrence, 

James Polyceen, Thos. Graems, 

Wm. Franklen, John Cottenham, 

Hen. Harrison, John Moland, 

John Heuston, Wm. Cuzzens. 
Daniel Boiles, 

Some of these names are historic in the annals of 
the Province. 

John Swift, afterward Royal collector of the Port, 
at whose house was held the first meeting at which the 
Assemblies were organized, was both secretary and 
treasurer of the first board of directors or managers, 
as their successors came to be known in later years. 
His account book, which now belongs to the American 
Philosophical Society, 55 gives some interesting and 
curious information about the colonial gentry of 
Pennsylvania. This manuscript shows that those 
old worthies were quite as fond of good cheer as their 
descendants of today, and that proportionally they 
made as large an appropriation for the various products 
of the vine as their successors of the present time. 
The invitations to many of the early Assemblies were 
printed on the backs of playing cards. Washington, 
when he lived in Philadelphia during his presidency, 
was naturally an attendant of those balls. 

During the season of 1748-49 there were four direc- 
tors, and likewise four for the winter of 1749-50. But 
in 1755 there were, as we learn from the Assembly 
card of Mrs. Jekyl, only two directors, Thomas Willing 
and James Trotter. 

An assembly card of 1790, linking the social festivi- 
ties of the early days of the Young Republic with the 
earlier colonial period of the Province is that of Miss 
Mary Shippen, "Polly" as she was known to her 
family and friends and as her first name is written on 



M It was presented to the American Philosophical Society in 1902 by Kdwin Swift 
Balch and Thomas Willing Balch. 



38 

the card. She was a daughter of Colonel Joseph 
Shippen of the Provincial forces of Pennsylvania, 
and his wife, the handsome Jane Galloway of Mary- 
land. Colonel Shippen, a graduate of Princeton in 
1753, took part in the capture in 1758 of Fort Du- 
quesne, and was afterward Secretary of the Provincial 
Council of Pennsylvania. A portrait by Benjamin 
West of Jane Galloway as a girl now hangs on one of 
the walls of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 
It is a splendid example of a real West and signed all 
over the canvas by the artist's brush. Mary Shippen 
married Samuel Swift, a nephew of the originator of 
the Philadelphia Assemblies, a graduate of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania in 1786, and a gentleman of 
wide and varied learning. 

As the city grew in population and the means of 
communication improved, other forms of entertain- 
ment grew up. As a result a smaller number of 
"Assembly" dances gradually came to be given in 
any one season. Thus during the winter of 1849-50, 
we learn from a journal of Joseph Swift that three 
Assemblies were held at Musical Fund Hall, a building 
still standing at Eighth and Locust streets. That 
was just one third of the number given one hundred 
and one years earlier. An assembly card for the sea- 
son of 1849-50 gives us the names of the managers for 
that winter, twelve in all, or three times as many as 
the four directors of the season of 1748-49. That 
card reads: — 

Assemblies 

The honor of Mr. Thomas Batch's Company is requested 
for the Season. 

John M. Scott James H. Blight 

Thomas Cadwalader B. W. Ingersoll 

Managers 

Joseph Swift William C. Twells 

Charles Willing Alexander Biddle 

Richard Vaux William W. Fisher 

M. S. Evans Bernard Henry, Jr. 



39 

A propos of one of these balls, Mr. Swift in his journal 
says: " 1850, January 16th, Wednesday, 2 d Assembly 
at the Musical Fund. I went with Genl. T. Cad- 
walader; home at 2 A. M. (17); a large and brilliant 
party." 

It has sometimes been held against Pennsylvania 
that she was slow in joining in the final break with 
Great Britain. In that policy, however, she merely 
proved herself more conservative than a large number 
of her sister colonies, who likewise were averse to a 
separation from the motherland until forced by the 
driving power of succeeding events into the movement 
for independence. But once Pennsylvania had given 
her full allegiance to the struggle for independence, 
she never faltered at any time in her allegiance either 
to the cause of the Confederation during the Revolu- 
tion, or afterwards to that of the Union during the 
War of 1812 and the Civil War. And taking courage 
from the good example set by the many sons of Mass- 
achusetts who have helped to make known to all the 
world the many contributions of that great State to 
the development of our common country, I have tried 
this morning to point out to this distinguished gather- 
ing some of the things which Pennsylvania has likewise 
contributed to our common national heritage. 



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